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Reviews For: Cushcraft R-8

Category: Antennas: HF: Verticals; Wire; Loop

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Review Summary For : Cushcraft R-8
Reviews: 105MSRP: 450 to $480
Description:
40-6m omnidirectional vertical antenna
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.cushcraftamateur.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
001054
KB6TRR Rating: 2000-07-24
Finally They Got It Right Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
After months of research, and reading numerous reviews, I decided to give Cushcraft a shot. The R8 comes on the heels of the R7000, which to say the least, had a rather dismal reputation. My lot size is rather small, so the antenna would have to be mounted on the roof, which left out antennas requiring buried radials. I picked up the antenna at the local HRO and got home by 12:30, by 6PM the antenna was completed. The only steps that I did not complete were installing the radials and the matching network. Ironically this is step two in the instruction manual, if these were installed per the manual, mounting the antenna might be a bit difficult. All of the parts were there right down to the last lock washer, no missing parts, no extra parts. Upon starting this project I removed all of the parts from their plastic bags and placed them on the floor. If you keep each bag's parts segregated you won't be continuously searching for the right part. I believe there is some logic to which parts go into which bag.

I mounted the antenna on a 10 foot mast adjacent to a porch roof,the roof is gently sloping and the mast protruded about 2 feet above the roof line. The antenna is very top heavy since the 30 meter and 17/20 meter traps are mounted near the top of the mast. This makes installation by a one person a daunting task, you feel like you belong in a circus, fortunately there was no wind or it would have been impossible, as it was, I was able to mount the unit by myself after 3 tries. Mounting the matching unit and the radial took about 15 minutes, and after connecting the mast to ground I was ready to give it a try.

What can I say, after living with super shortened dipoles it was like getting the wax removed from your ears. My first contact was with a station in Argentina, and I busted the pileup on the first try. No, it's not a beam, but if you live on a small lot and a beam is not practical, it is definately better than the shortened low elevation dipoles I've had to use in the past. The manual does not say anything about guying the antenna, I did, since the antenna is rather top heavy and we get some very sudden intense winds in this area. While its not cheap, $400. It works, and very well.
N9QZD Rating: 2000-06-14
So Far So Good Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Assembled easily, no missing parts!
No tuning required after assembly.
No problems so far.
Mounted at 70 feet on tower.
I am concerned how it will do in the wind.....

That is the only drawback so far, it is tall and moves around a lot in the wind. kind of hard to guy on top of a rotating mast.
W2EH Rating: 2000-06-08
Works fine in then rain at 1450W peak Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
The R8 has been tested with an Icom-756 driving a Commander HF-2500 at 1450W peak.
Andrew LDF-2-50 is used to feed the R8, the run is 110ft. An RF Applications VFD-HF wattmeter was used to measure the peak power in the shack. In a driving rain no VSWR or arcing problems were present on 18.140mhz SSB. This antenna is an improvement over the previous R7000 design.
K5AGE Rating: 2000-05-28
Pleasently surprised Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Assembly took the better part of a day. There were no missing parts and instructions were generally clear and accurate. The initial base location was on a wall 8 feet below the roof and about 25 feet above ground. SWR was less than 2:1 at resonance on all bands except 6m where it was 4:1. Cushcraft technical support was not able to offer any useful suggestions but they spent a half hour on the phone trying. After relocation to the roof top, about 30 feet above ground, I was able to tune 6m to 2.5:1. Resonance shifts lower when the roof is wet from rain, particularly on 40m and 20m where it shifts a couple hundred KHz. The unit is top heavy because of the traps and is difficult to errect by one person. A swivel base mount allows the antenna to be errected and lowered by one person. Cushcraft does not plan to offer a 80m option but the standard R8 does surprisingly well on 80m. SWR was less than 4:1 from 3.8 to 3.9 MHz. I have found the performance to be quite usable on 80m with the automatic antenna tuner on my IC756 Pro.
W7SES Rating: 2000-04-21
Not your father's R7000 Time Owned: unknown months.
The R8 went together easily...although it took the better part of a day and a half. It is equal in performance to a dipole up almost 100 feet. It required at little tweaking to get it tuned to the parts of the bands I wanted...no interactions to speak of so it tuned easily. So far, so good. I felt that I had to guy it, but that was my decision. I hope it holds up...only running 100 watts, so I don't expect trouble. I'd say, go for it.